Facebook marketing Designing your next marketing campaign Justin R. Levy

Facebook Marketing
®

Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign

Justin R. Levy

800 East 96th Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46240 USA

From the Library of Wow! eBook


Facebook Marketing
© Copyright 2010 by Pearson Education, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a
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in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability assumed for
damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
ISBN-13: 978-07897-4321-3
0-7897-4321-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Levy, Justin R. (Justin Robert)
Facebook marketing : designing your next marketing campaign /
Justin R. Levy.
p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7897-4321-3
ISBN-10: 0-7897-4321-3
1. Internet marketing. 2. Internet advertising. 3. Facebook
(Electronic resource)
4. Social networks--Computer network resources. I. Title.
HF5415.1265.L4813 2010
658.8'72--dc22
2010005894
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: May 2010

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From the Library of Wow! eBook

CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
About the Author
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 From Dorm Room to Boardroom: The Growth of Social Networks
2 Getting Around Facebook: The Basics
3 Establishing a Corporate Presence
4 Extending Facebook into the Interwebs: The Power and Reach of Facebook Connect
5 Facebook Advertising: How and Why You Should Be Using It
6 Extending the Experience with Facebook Apps
7 Addressing Privacy Concerns
8 Developing a Facebook Marketing Strategy
9 Using Facebook to Develop Communities
10 Best in Class
11 Shaking the Crystal Ball: What’s Next for Facebook
Index

From the Library of Wow! eBook


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIII
1

From Dorm Room to Boardroom: The Growth of Social
Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About Marc Zuckerberg
The Early Days

.....................................................................5

The Teenage Years

................................................................7

Coming into Adulthood

2

.........................................................5

.........................................................8

Getting Around Facebook: The Basics
Getting Started

............................

15

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

0-60 on Facebook in 11 Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1. Take a Few Minutes to Familiarize Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2. Upload a Picture of Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3. Fill Out Your Profile Completely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4. Start Finding Some Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5. Import your AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or
Windows Live Buddies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

6. Upload More Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7. Upload a Video or Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
8. Send Your First Status Using the Publisher Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
9. Download a Facebook Mobile Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
10. Start Interacting with Your Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
11. Have Fun and Explore! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Home Page Feed

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Comments and Likes
Publisher Tool

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Photos

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Videos

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Pages and Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Notes

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Facebook Chat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Search

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Friends Tab
Inbox Tab

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Settings Tab

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

From the Library of Wow! eBook


Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s

3

Establishing a Corporate Presence
Facebook: Personal or Professional?

V

.................................

41

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Developing a Corporate Facebook Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Facebook Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Getting Started with Your Facebook Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
What’s Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Promoting Your Facebook Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Email Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Email Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Company Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Facebook Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Google AdWords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Facebook Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Page or Group: Which One?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Nurturing Your Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Run Contests or Sweepstakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Share Specific Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Create Specific Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Simply Engage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Should You Police Your Community? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

4

Extending Facebook into the Interwebs:
The Power and Reach of Facebook Connect
Using Facebook Connect for Commenting

....................

67

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Using Facebook Connect to Provide Sharing Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Sharing Stories into Your Stream with Facebook Connect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Recent Friend Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Using Facebook Connect for Social Filtering

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Using Facebook Connect as a Single Sign On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Creating a Personalized Experience with Facebook Connect
Integrating Chat Using the Live Feed

. . . . . . . . . . 73

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Not Just for the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
A Few Stats

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

From the Library of Wow! eBook


Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s

VI

5

Facebook Advertising: How and
Why You Should Be Using It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Common Reasons for an Ad to be Rejected

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an Ad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
1. Design Your Ad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2. Target Your Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
3. Create a Campaign and Set Pricing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4. Review and Submit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Analyzing Performance

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

6

Extending the Experience with Facebook Apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Shareability of Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Finding Facebook Applications and Navigating the Directory . . . . . . . . . 93
Reviewing and Adding an Application

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Managing Your Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Creating Your Own Facebook Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Installing the Developer Application

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Completing the Application Configuration Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Summary

7

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Addressing Privacy Concerns

.......................................

105

The Two Faces of Privacy on Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Single Facebook Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Two Different Facebook Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Not Mixing Personal and Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Privacy Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Personal Privacy Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Pages Privacy Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Group Privacy Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Facebook’s Privacy Policy
Summary

8

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Developing a Facebook Marketing Strategy
Designing a Community Building Strategy
Designing a Promotions Strategy

.................

123

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Designing an Advertising Strategy

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

The Importance of Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Facebook Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Facebook Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

From the Library of Wow! eBook


Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s

VII

Web Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Marketing Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Other Measuring Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Summary

9

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Using Facebook to Develop Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Building a Community for Your Company, Product, or Service . . . . . . . 143
Upload Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Upload Videos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Ask Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
RSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Provide Exclusives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Building an Internal Community

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Using Facebook as a Focus Group

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Building a Personal Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Be Helpful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Connect Often . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Be a Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Use Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Business Benefit from Personal Communities

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Building a Community Around a Hobby or Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Summary

10

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Best in Class

................................................................

157

Volkswagen

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Trust Agents

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Microsoft Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Gary Vaynerchuk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Barack Obama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Jonas Brothers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Gavin Newsom

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Vin Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Mashable

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Lessons Learned from the “Best in Class”

11

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Shaking the Crystal Ball: What’s Next for Facebook

......

177

Going Public

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178

Acquisitions

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179

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Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s

Integrating More Professionalism
Dashboard Customization

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Increasing Ways to Connect

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

An Endless Rainbow of Options

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Signing Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

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About the Author
Justin R. Levy is the Director of Business Development, Marketing, and Client
Relations of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency. In this role Justin
helps large and mid-sized businesses navigate the unknown seas of new media
marketing including how to use social media tools, blogs, community platforms,
and listening tools to drive business value. Justin and his team help their clients
move the needles that they care about moving using these new and emerging
resources. Justin has worked with brands such as Sony, PepsiCo, Microsoft, Citrix
Online, Molson Coors, SAS, and several other big brand partners.
When not busy with New Marketing Labs, Justin is partner and general manager of
Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse, located in Massachusetts. Through the use of
social media marketing techniques, Justin has successfully grown his steakhouse at
least 20 percent in sales every month for more than 24 months straight. Because of
this success, Justin and Caminito have been featured in multiple business and
marketing books and profiled by some of the most successful marketing blogs in
the world.
Justin writes and creates all types of media at justinrlevy.com, which is listed as one
of the top 350 marketing blogs worldwide according to AdAge and top 5,000 blogs
worldwide according to Technorati. Justin is founder and editor of primecutsblog.
com, a blog focusing on teaching readers cooking techniques, tips, and recipes, and

the editor-in-chief and a contributor for several other blogs on behalf of his clients.
Justin received a master’s degree in Homeland Security from the University of
Connecticut and dual undergraduate degrees in sociology and criminal justice from
the University of Hartford.

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Dedication
This book is dedicated to my beautiful wife, Laura. Without her support, none of this
would be possible.

Acknowledgments
Thank you to Loretta Yates and everyone at Pearson Education who was patient,
encouraging, and true professionals to work with to bring this book to life.
Thank you to the entire team at New Marketing Labs for always supporting my
ambitious goals, especially Chris Brogan. Chris, you have been an amazing mentor,
friend, and colleague.
A special thanks to all the great partners that I’ve had the honor of working with at
New Marketing Labs. The experiences that I’ve had working with each of you have
provided lifelong lessons, experiences, and friendships.
Thank you to Joseph Gionfriddo for being an amazing best friend and partner to
work with and my entire staff at Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse for working as
hard as they do on a daily basis to help in our continued success.
Although this book is dedicated to my wife Laura, it’s only appropriate that she is
acknowledged here as well. You have had a larger impact on my life than any card,
bunch of flowers, or gift can ever express. I am blessed to have a wife as beautiful,
smart, loving, caring, understanding, and supportive as you are. I love you.
To my mom and dad, who unfortunately I lost way too early in life: I hope that I’ve
made you proud. You are the force looking over my shoulder that has kept pushing

me for the past 10 years since you were taken away from me. I love and miss both
of you!
Words can never express my gratitude to Laura’s family, especially her parents, Jim
and Lynne Pasternack. You have always treated me like family, and you have filled a
void that had been torn open from the loss of my parents. You provide a model for
what the word “family” truly means. Thank you.
To my grandparents, Santo and Norma Lasorsa, and my uncles, Stephen and David
Lasorsa, for always being there. Your guidance and support over the years has had
an immeasurable impact on who I’ve become.
To everyone who has supported me over the years, thank you for always believing
in me. There are far too many of you to list individually, but please know that I have
learned from every one of you.

From the Library of Wow! eBook


Thank you to all the great companies that have served as the model for how businesses can successfully use social media and, for the purposes of this book, specifically, Facebook. You have paved the way and set the gold standards. Keep being
innovative and not scared to take a little risk on finding new ways to connect with
your prospects, customers, and fans.
Most of all, thank YOU for picking out this book among the thousands of others
vying for your attention. It is my hope that what follows is useful to YOU.

From the Library of Wow! eBook


We Want to Hear from You!
As the reader of this book, you are our most important critic and commentator. We
value your opinion and want to know what we’re doing right, what we could do better, what areas you’d like to see us publish in, and any other words of wisdom you’re
willing to pass our way.
As an associate publisher for Que Publishing, I welcome your comments. You can

email or write me directly to let me know what you did or didn’t like about this
book—as well as what we can do to make our books better.
Please note that I cannot help you with technical problems related to the topic of this
book. We do have a User Services group, however, where I will forward specific technical questions related to the book.
When you write, please be sure to include this book’s title and author as well as
your name, email address, and phone number. I will carefully review your comments and share them with the author and editors who worked on the book.

Reader Services
Visit our website and register this book at www.informit.com/title/9780789743213
for convenient access to any updates, downloads, or errata that might be available
for this book.

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Introduction
ou can’t seem to escape it. It’s everywhere. On the news. On business cards. On
your mobile phone. What is “it”? “It” is Facebook and it is part of a suite of
online tools that change the way we communicate, build relationships, connect with
one another, market, and do business.

Y

The more people embrace it, others love to hate it; Facebook continues to grow into
not “just another social network” but, instead, a powerhouse company that commands influence.
Many people question the viability of using Facebook as a main form of communication, not only personally but also professionally. Companies, rightfully so, have
many questions regarding security, privacy, and how a website where you can comment on what your friends are doing, upload pictures and videos, and become a fan
of just about anything in the world can actually help them to move needles that are
important to them.
Facebook has become popular with not only individuals, but an increasing number

of companies as well. Why? Because Facebook provides a suite of features that allow
companies to develop communities, humanize their brands, engage with their
prospects and customers, and many other benefits.
This book is a deep dive into how Facebook can be leveraged by your company
starting TODAY. This book is not just a Facebook-is-cool-and-you-should-join
type book. This book provides you with actionable information that you can begin
implementing into your business. It gives you the ammunition you need to convince your boss, your board, your IT team, or your employees why they should be
investing time and money on “just another social network.”
This book addresses these concepts. We start with a brief overview of Facebook’s
history and move on from there to chat about the basics of getting around on the
site, establishing a corporate presence, extending Facebook even deeper into the
interwebs, Facebook Advertising, Facebook Apps, privacy concerns, and community
development in Facebook. You work through designing a marketing plan geared
directly for Facebook and understand why and how it will be different than any
other marketing plan you put together. You then take a look at some of those individuals and companies who are best in class for their contribution to the Facebook
community. You can extrapolate some of the concepts that they use, break them
down, and discover the resources that you can then use for yourself or your company. This book finishes with where Facebook is going next. You take a look at this
from both the macro and micro levels because you need to understand and attempt
to predict both in the coming months and years of Facebook.

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Facebook Marketing

With that, understand that Facebook is growing and changing at such a fast pace
that by the time you get your hands on this book, there will probably be another
two dozen changes. Right up to the book going to press changes to the entire manuscript were made to keep it as current as possible.

With that said, buckle your seat belts, return and secure your tray tables and chairs
to their full and upright position, and let’s take a ride through Facebook with stops
along the way to help you find practical business application uses for it.

Who Should Buy This Book
Simply put: This book is designed for professionals who want to understand how
Facebook can be integrated into their business. This includes anyone from the CEO
to the CMO to PR, communications, and marketing. Besides gaining an understanding of how you can use Facebook within your business, you can also gain an
understanding of how YOU can use Facebook professionally as part of your own
personal/professional branding.

How This Book Is Organized
Facebook Marketing is organized into 11 chapters.
Chapter 1, “From Dorm Room to Boardroom: The Growth of Social Networks,”
takes you from the beginning of Facebook in the founders’ dorm rooms at Harvard
University all the way to their corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California.
This chapter provides an introduction to the phenomenon known as Facebook
including major milestones such as opening the platform to everyone, going mainstream, and the major growth data points.
Chapter 2, “Getting Around Facebook: The Basics,” deals with getting you around
Facebook by taking a stroll through the basics. This includes a summary and
detailed description of the basic profile options, notes, photos, videos, comments,
likes, friends lists, Facebook Chat, and many other features. This chapter provides
you with a foundation for going deeper into the platform and understanding how it
can be integrated into your business.
In Chapter 3, “Establishing a Corporate Presence,” you explore establishing a corporate presence including a deep dive into Facebook Pages and Groups. You gain an
understanding of how to set up each of these features for your business, how they
can be used, and which ones you should select based on your needs.

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Chapter 4, “Extending Facebook into the Interwebs: The Power and Reach of
Facebook Connect,” breaks out of the framework of Facebook and discusses
extending Facebook into the interwebs through the use of tools such as Facebook
Connect. You learn how this major feature has been integrated into websites and
how you can use it for your needs.
In Chapter 5, “Facebook Advertising: How and Why You Should Be Using It,” you
learn about the Facebook advertising platform and why you should use it. You learn
about creating an ad, setting a budget, selecting cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-perimpressions (CPM), discovering your target audience, and using Facebook Insights
(analytics).
To gain a full experience while using Facebook, you need to extend its capabilities
with Facebook Apps. In Chapter 6, “Extending the Experience with Facebook Apps,”
I discuss plug-ins such as Flickr, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and several other applications that can help you to connect with your prospects, customers, and fans.
One of the most addressed issues throughout Facebook’s history has been privacy.
Chapter 7, “Addressing Privacy Concerns,” reviews the changes of Facebook’s privacy policy, whether you should have a personal AND professional Facebook
account or if you need a single profile, and several other issues as it deals with your
privacy, your customers’ privacy, and the privacy of your company.
By the time you make it to Chapter 8, “Developing a Facebook Marketing Strategy,”
you will have developed a deeper understanding of Facebook and how you can use
it as another part of your marketing toolbox. Chapter 8 helps you to pull all these
tools together to develop a Facebook marketing strategy.
With all the described options, you learn that one of the best uses of Facebook for
your business is through the development of communities. But how do you pull all
this together? Chapter 9, “Using Facebook to Develop Communities,” teaches you
how you can use Facebook to develop communities.
Because you’re not the first company to jump into Facebook, Chapter 10, “Best in

Class,” shows you some of the Best in Class companies that have fully utilized
Facebook to build communities, engage with their audiences, and become more
social. Some of these companies and people are those you already know: CocaCola, Microsoft Office, President Barack Obama, and many more.
To finish, Chapter 11, “Shaking the Crystal Ball: What’s Next for Facebook,” shakes
the crystal ball and tries to guesstimate what’s next for Facebook. This is your sandbox to play in to see if you can figure out where Facebook goes from here. Place
your bets and let ‘em ride!

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Facebook Marketing

Tips, Tricks, & Hacks
Tip
Tips, tricks, and hacks are designed to point out features to help your experience with Facebook be smoother, more enjoyable, and more productive.
As with the early days in school in math class, you’ll have to learn some of
the hard ways first and then we’ll teach you quick tips, tricks, and hacks to
help you.

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1
From Dorm Room
to Boardroom:
The Growth of
Social Networks
Over the past several years, social networks have become

increasingly popular as they made their way into mainstream society mainly due to the ability to communicate
in both real-time and asynchronously with a wide group
of people. It is important to remember that the ability to
use the Internet to communicate with a diverse and
worldwide audience is not new and cannot be attributed
solely to tools such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.
The ability to connect instantaneously with people from
all around the world has been available to us since
Prodigy decided to allow people to set up user groups
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Facebook Marketing

This paved the way to the creation of forum boards, user groups, chat rooms, IRC,
instant messaging, and eventually, social networks as we know them today.
Nowadays these social networks come in all different shapes, sizes, and specialties.
Do you love taking photos? Hop on Flickr. Want to communicate in short bursts of
messages in real time. Head over to Twitter. A sucker for video? There’s a service a
few people have heard of called YouTube. Want something a little more specialized?
How about a niche community encouraging members to stay fit? There’s Twit2Fit
that is run on the Ning social networking platform. Now, you want to track your
workouts from getting back into shape, thanks in part to the support you get on
Twit2Fit? Yep, there’s a social network for that, too. You see, there is a social network
for just about every broad and specific subject you could possibly want. Of course,
some are more mainstream and “sticky” than others; therefore, there’s more engagement and sharing by the community, and more iterating of the platform by the
founding company. To understand just how many platforms there are and how
many different communications verticals they span, Brian Solis and Jesse Stay created the Conversation Prism, shown in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 The Conversation Prism, created by Brian Solis and Jesse Stay, provides a
visual representation of the social web. For more, visit theconversationprism.com.

These tools enable a single person to develop a personal brand that can compete
with household consumer brands. Through the development of these personal

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From Dorm Room to Boardroom

3

brands, social networks, and blogs allow people to now be in control of what news
others see. These social networks allow for the management of your online reputation. Besides these benefits, they create the ability for one person to use a platform
to talk to thousands of people simply by hitting the Enter key. Social networks
enable regular, normal, run-of-the-mill individuals, to become influencers and
trusted resources to their communities. Yes, now YOU can develop your own personal communities. These communities can have a direct impact on your ability to
build your business successfully by interacting with your prospects and customers
online and building a strong fan base.
Social networks and blogs allow a wine store owner to connect with his community
and help to grow his business from $4 million per year to over $60 million per year
in revenue. These tools have helped a guy from north of Boston to develop such a
strong community that they helped catapult a book he wrote onto the New York
Times Bestsellers list only two days after the book was on store shelves. But, these
tools have not only been beneficial to individuals. They have also helped some of
the largest companies in the world reach out and start connecting with their customers on a one-to-one basis.

Businesses have greatly benefited from turning to social networks and integrating
them as part of their marketing, communications, and customer service strategies.
Using social networks has allowed businesses that embrace these tools to “humanize themselves.” What do I mean by the term humanize?
For decades, companies have continued to grow through their ability to properly
manage their brand by successfully marketing logos, catch phrases, slogans, and tag
lines, all of which help to develop brand recognition. These companies became
known by our ability to recognize their logos and get their jingles stuck in our
heads, or the catchy tag line at the end of every commercial. At the same time, these
same companies, in an effort to improve their bottom line, routinely looked at
implementing systems and processes that automated as much as possible. Need to
talk to customer service? Sure, there is a number to call. But, first, you’re going to
have to hit 1. Then 2. Type your account number. Type it again because you
screwed up the first time. Say your last name. Now you’re finally transferred to a
human but because you hit 2 instead of 3 during the second step, you were sent to
the wrong department. Now you have to be transferred elsewhere where you have
to repeat all the information that you just inputted.
It’s barriers like these that, while beneficial to the corporation, prevent them from
highlighting the humans and personalities that help the corporation to function on
a daily basis. Social networks help to change this. Humans can showcase the individual personalities that help to make them who they are. Companies can now cut
out the phone trees and instantaneously interact with a single customer who is

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Facebook Marketing

having an issue, which, to the customer, is one of the most serious things going on
in his life at the very moment.

Besides just being active on social networks, these tools also enable businesses to, as
Chris Brogan describes it, “grow bigger ears.” You see, at any given moment, there
are multiple conversations taking place about you, your brand, your products or
services, your competition, and your industry. Imagine if you could monitor all this
chatter in real time and had the ability to quickly respond? That would be valuable
to you as a business, right? Hint: You want to be nodding your head up and down
as fast as possible. If you’re not, then put this book down, run head first into the
wall, and start over again.
By way of the amount of data that users pour into these social networks on a daily
basis, they allow us to monitor all those conversations with listening tools. These
listening tools can alert us to any mentions of anything that is of interest to us.
Someone bashes you on a blog post? The software service your company sells
crashes for a user during a big presentation so he complains online? Your competition announces a major restructuring, product, or financial news? Yep, all these situations and much more can be monitored. In fact, these tools, because of their
real-time nature, routinely provide information faster than Google can index it and
quicker than news organizations can mobilize to broadcast.
Social networks have helped to grow businesses, elevate normal people to web
celebrities, bring celebrities down to a human level, launch music careers, change
national sentiment toward entire industries and assist in building and growing a
community so strong that it helped to elect the 44th President of the United States of
America.
One of the fastest growing and most popular social networks ever to be launched
has been Facebook. With over 400 million users who generate billions of pieces of
content, the social network has a larger population than most countries. When you
first join Facebook, you immediately understand how it can be used to connect
with family and friends. However, many people find themselves questioning the
viability of using Facebook as a main form of communications professionally.
Companies, rightfully so, have many questions regarding security, privacy, and how
a website where you can comment on what your friends are doing, upload pictures,
videos, and become a fan of just about anything in the world can actually help them
to move needles that are important to them.

Throughout this book, I will tackle these very issues and help show you, both
strategically and tactically, how Facebook can be used within your business. But
first, let’s start by exploring how a little social network that was created in a dorm
room has become the behemoth that it is today.

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About Marc Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg (shown in Figure 1.2) was born on May 14, 1984 and was raised
in Dobbs Ferry, NY. Though it would be a few years before Zuckerberg would create the top social network in the world, he began coding at an early age while he
was in middle school. Zuckerberg attended Phillips Exeter Academy where he
devised Synapse, a music player that leveraged artificial intelligence to learn users’
listening habits. The technology that Zuckerberg created was so intriguing that it
brought both Microsoft and AOL calling as both corporations tried recruiting
Zuckerberg before he decided to attend Harvard University. But, that was not the
only project keeping Zuckerberg busy while he attended Phillips Exeter Academy.
Zuckerberg also built a version of the popular game, Risk, in addition to a program
to help improve communications within his father’s office. After Phillips Exeter
Academy, Zuckerberg moved on to Harvard where he majored in computer science.

Figure 1.2 Mark Zuckerberg, Cofounder, CEO, and President of Facebook.

The Early Days

What would become the world’s most popular social network only a few short years
after its launch all started in February 2004 when Mark Zuckerberg launched “The
Facebook,” originally located at thefacebook.com (see Figure 1.3). Before becoming
the richest person in the world under 25, Mark Zuckerberg was a sophomore at
Harvard University when he developed The Facebook.

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Facebook Marketing

Figure 1.3 The original login screen to TheFacebook.com that launched on February 4,
2004 for Harvard University students only.

The Facebook came about after, during the previous semester, Zuckerberg created a
Harvard version of a popular rating website “HOT or NOT.” Zuckerberg called it
Facemash, and it was intended to allow students at Harvard University to compare
other students based on their online dorm Facebooks.
At the time that Zuckerberg was creating Facemash, HOT or NOT, as shown in
Figure 1.4, was a popular rating site, founded in October 2000 by James Hong and
Jim Young, that allowed users to vote whether pictures of people that were submitted to the site were HOT or NOT. As the HOT or NOT website describes
HOT or NOT is the original place to rate, date, and hook up with single people
18–34. With millions rated using HOT or NOT’s proprietary “RATE” feature,
HOT or NOT is the official home of hotness...users can “MEET” other members through HOT or NOT’s exclusive DoubleMatch™ dating engine. HOT or
NOT also offers other fun options such as real-time chat, virtual flowers and
gifts, and HOTLists™, which let members share their passions through personal
selections of over 220,000 pictures of bands, movies, sports, TV shows, products, and hobbies.
At its height, HOT or NOT raked in an annual revenue approximated at $5 million

with net profits of $2 million. Whether, at the time, HOT or NOT had already hit
this success, and if they had, if Zuckerberg had known about it, the service was still
very popular among college students. Therefore, it is no surprise that Zuckerberg
saw an opportunity to create a private, internal network similar to the popular rating service, reserved only for Harvard students. Also, the basic tenets of the service

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7

Figure 1.4 One of the original landing pages for HotorNot.com, which, at the height
of its growth, would bring in annual revenue of approximately $5 million.
aren’t features that would be hard for someone who had been coding their entire
life to create.
The Facemash site launched on October 28, 2003 but was shut down by Harvard
administration officials only a few days later because, to gain access to the pictures, Zuckerberg had hacked Harvard’s computer network and copied over each
of the nine residential houses' databases of ID photos. So, how did a HOT or NOT
knockoff eventually iterate to become the world’s largest and most popular social
network to date?
It all started when Mark Zuckerberg added the site to the Kirkland House email
list, which, at the time, was only approximately 300 people in total. However, from
that single email, and Zuckerberg sharing his latest creation with a few friends,
thefacebook.com spread so quickly that within the first month of its launch more
than half of the undergraduates at Harvard during spring 2004 had signed up.

The Teenage Years

The Facebook was launched and, at first, was available only to Harvard University
students. In March 2004, only one month after its initial launch, Zuckerberg
expanded access to Stanford, Yale, and Columbia. Then Zuckerberg quickly
expanded access to all Ivy League universities, then next to Boston area universities
and colleges, and then across the United States and Canada. Although nothing
specifically points to the geographic location of Harvard University as one of the
reasons for the early explosive growth, it could be argued that it had a big effect. In the
greater Boston area, there are well over 100 colleges and universities. The Northeast
has the largest concentration of colleges and universities in the country. This helped
Zuckerberg spread the social network quickly as it created demand for access as
friends from different schools chatted with one another.

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Facebook Marketing

During its initial growth spurt at Harvard, Zuckerberg brought on Eduardo Saverin,
Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCllum, and Chris Hughes to help with programming, graphic design, promotion, and other related tasks. The Facebook would later
incorporate as a business during the summer of 2004. In June 2004, only 4 months
after the platform’s inception, Facebook would receive its first investment totaling
$500,000 from Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal. For The Facebook to continue its
Cinderella story, it would be necessary for the company to be located at the epicenter of technology, Silicon Valley. The Facebook moved operations out of the dorm
rooms at Harvard and out to Palo Alto, California.
In 2005, The Facebook purchased facebook.com for $200,000 and dropped “The”
from its name. Later that year, in September 2005, approximately a year and onehalf after the initial launch, Facebook opened its network to high schools. It would
be another year, in September 2006, that Facebook would completely open the network to anyone older than 13 with a valid email address.
During this time, Facebook continued to receive injections of cash to help it scale

its operations to accommodate for the increase in demand from its users. In 2005,
Facebook received venture capital funding from Accel Partners to the tune of $12.7
million. Facebook would receive another injection from Greylock Partners totaling
$27.5 million in 2006.
To help Facebook continue expanding into international markets, in October 2007,
Facebook and Microsoft expanded an advertising deal that gave Microsoft a $240
million equity stake in the social network. As a main pillar of Facebook’s current
revenue model, Facebook launched Facebook Ads a month later, in November 2007.

Coming into Adulthood
In January 2010, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had signed on its 400
millionth user. Consider that in September 2009, Zuckerberg announced the 300
millionth user, and not too long before that, in July 2009, he announced via the
Facebook Blog that the network had surpassed its 250 millionth user since the site
launched in February 2004. In only approximately 2 months, the social network had
signed up an additional 50 million users. To put that number into even more perspective, consider that in April 2009, Zuckerberg had announced that Facebook had
passed the 200 millionth user mark. The growth from 200 to 250 million users took
Facebook approximately 90 days. The growth from 250 to 300 million users took
roughly 60 days. That is a growth rate of approximately 833,000 users every day. To
put that into even more perspective, that translates to approximately 35,000 users
an hour or 578 every minute. Some estimates place the growth rate at approximately 750,000 new users per day.

From the Library of Wow! eBook